The Secret of Tayburn Zoo: 15

The dog was staring at Dexi, or
more specifically it seemed to be staring at the camera Dexi kept tucked away
on the underside of her front foot. In some of the television shows Dexi had
watched back at the zoo dogs liked to chase things, bring them back to their
masters, only to have them thrown again. Was that what was happening with this
dog? It had been an hour and not one of the new arrivals had said a word, so
maybe this was an ordinary dog in the way Aurora had been an ordinary panda.

Dexi snapped to attention as Gerry the toucan waddled up to the rabbit,
his steps scraping quietly on the metal floor. It took a moment, but the rabbit
screwed up its nose and looked up at him with wide eyes, then seemed to get
bored and went back to examining the floor.

"Er, hi," Gerry said, extending one wing, "I'm
Gerry."

The mouse scurried away into the corner as Gerry's wing moved. The
rabbit said nothing, did nothing.

"This is stupid," Dexi said, pointing with her non-camera hand
towards Gerry and looking up to Chip. "They're all stupid!"

Chip sighed, and Dexi knew she was in for a lecture. With a brief glance
towards the mirror-window, he made sure the hidden camera didn't needlessly
face towards it and crossed the few yards between them.

"For the last time," Chip said, glaring at her, "Were you
stupid before you came to the zoo? No, you learned how to get food, how to stay
alive. That's much more difficult than anything Patrick's asked you to do
since. This dog is a sheepdog. I'm pretty sure they get sheep to behave. That
also sounds difficult. Conclusion, this is not a stupid dog."

Dexi rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Chip nodded. "I do, yes. And I wish you would stop talking like
that."

His voice went soft, which was much more normal for Chip. He never used
to tell her off so firmly; that was always Patrick's job.

"Sheep!" the dog shouted.

Chip slitted his eyes and his shoulders slumped with a sigh.
"Alternatively, this dog develops the power to speak and nothing I say is
of any relevance to you."

Dexi chuckled and darted over to the dog. The dog stumbled back, getting
one foot caught in Gerry's sleeping pallet. The foot slid out from under it and
it yelped as it collapsed onto its backside.

"Ouch," it muttered. Then its eyes went wide and darted around
the room as if it was trying to figure out who was speaking.

"Er, I think I scared it," Dexi said.

Gerry hopped over to her, leaving the rabbit for the moment. "You
might want to stop saying 'it'."

"Well, I wouldn't have been saying 'it' at all if someone had told
us the sex of these three, but in case you've forgotten MacLean shuffled in
here, ushered the animals in, then just left. What am I meant to do with that?"

"She?" the dog said, tilting its head to one side.

"Huh?" Dexi said, turning back to face it.

"I think I am she," the dog explained. "I have she
body."

Dexi shrugged and pointed towards the spot in her head that housed her
brain, just behind her eyes. "Doesn't have to be your body. My friend Rita
has a 'male' body, but she's still a she."

The dog frowned and seemed to literally be chewing it over. "I'm
not sure."

Dexi smiled, but quickly stopped when she realised seeing more of her
teeth was scaring the dog. "That's alright too. Rita didn't figure out who
she was until a while after we all came to the zoo either. I probably should
stop calling you 'it' though. How's 'they'?"

The dog nodded. "Alright, uh, sure."

Dexi looked to her left at the rabbit, glad to not have to crane her
neck to look up at someone for once. "Don't suppose you have a gender all
set and ready to go?"

The rabbit, with wide eyes, shook their head. They cleared their throat
and said, "No."

Dexi nodded, then looked further left. But the mouse was still gone from
their spot, and after glancing around Dexi still couldn't spot them.

Before she could begin to look around properly, the door flew open. The
rushing wind brushed past Dexi even though she was at the other side of the
room and she whirled round to face whoever had entered, thwacking the dog with
her tail.

"Hi there, Dexi," Haldane said. Her upper and lower teeth were
weirdly close together and the muscles in her throat seemed to be a little
strained. "Could I borrow you for a moment?"

Dexi literally swallowed in an attempt to keep back the retort that
she'd been borrowing them for almost
a week already. She imagined that if she'd had a similar shape of neck her
throat would have looked similar to Haldane's as she replied, "Sure thing,
Miss."

Chip gaped at her as she walked past, and she hoped he wouldn't worry
too much. Any worrying he did do would have been justified, of course,
especially since the last time Dexi had left them she'd returned babbling
strings of numbers and random letters. Haldane had fed maths problems directly
into her brain to optimise how fast she could solve them and for a long time
afterwards her vision had been made up entirely of bright red characters on a
dark black background.

"Follow me," Haldane said, though what she thought Dexi had
been doing up to that point was a mystery to her.

Haldane led her round a series of uniform right-angled corridors, left,
left, right, left, each of the distances between the turns always exactly the
same. The walls were all the same dark blue, and in between each turning there
was a door in the midpoint of the distance. Finally, Haldane swung one of the
doors open, and if Dexi hadn't known better she'd have guessed it was at
random.

But it wasn't random.

There were many things in the room, many of them probably very
interesting scientific instruments that would probably be used to drive her mad
on one of the approaching afternoons. But Dexi saw only one thing.

"Aurora!" she screamed.

She sprinted forward into the room and barrelled right into Aurora.
Aurora gasped, and Dexi realised too late that she had definitely winded her,
but then her fluffy stomach shifted and she drew Dexi forward into a hug.
Aurora was giggling; Dexi was holding back tears.

"As heartwarming as this genuinely is," Haldane said, "We
have a problem."

Dexi reluctantly drew away from Aurora and forced herself to stay calm.
Haldane could probably have guessed how emotional she would be at this reunion,
but she didn't need the satisfaction.

Haldane pointed at a screen at the back of the room, which was showing
the room Dexi had just come from.

"I didn't do anything!" Dexi shouted, "They just started
talking!"

Haldane shook her head. "I know, I know. This has merely confirmed
our theory that the anomaly was confined to the original test subjects not
because the treatment you had undergone affected only you but because you were
not near any other animals to infect."

"What?" Dexi exclaimed. "I didn't understand much of that
but did you just call me an infection?"

Haldane shook her head and put her hand to her forehead. "Sorry,
I'm not great with words. Just watch."

She pressed a button on the side of the screen and the picture changed
to a very similar room, but different in that it contained only a mouse, a
rabbit and a dog. The sound beeped on, and Dexi realised that they were talking
in one word sentences to each other. Then the screen changed again, and this
time showed a mouse, rabbit and dog trudging around the room and making
ordinary animal noises.

"Those are the animals furthest from you," Haldane explained.
"The animals in the room in between seem to have developed some level of
intelligence, but not equal to those actually sharing your space. So, like when
the frog, Treego, spent time with Aurora, something in your being is passing to
the other animals and changing them too. Oh, it also doesn't seem to matter
what size they are."

Dexi's bottom jaw fell open, bumping against the ground. "So that's
why you sent in animals of different sizes. That's why you sent them in at all.
As a test? That poor dog is now trying to understand the concept of gender
because you lot wanted to test something out?"

Haldane spread her hands. "How do you think you came to be in the
first place. Patrick McAfferty was trying something, per our instruction, on
you."

Dexi shuddered, but forced herself to continue. "Patrick didn't
know what he was doing - he never meant to do it. And he's spent all this time
trying to figure out what he did. It eats him alive!"

Haldane raised an eyebrow. "Look, you really ought to check
yourself before you get all high and mighty. Your friend Patrick has been
tasked by us to figure out a way to reverse the process. Granted he's doing a
terrible job of it, so you're probably safe in your little carnival, but you
don't know everything about what you're talking about!"

Haldane's breath was sharp and shallow. Dexi had never seen her like
this. But the shock of seeing her so rattled paled in comparison to the cold
trembling that had begun to wrack her body. Patrick was trying to put them
back? That just was not possible.

Haldane spoke in a softer voice. "I'm sorry. You may think we're
monsters, but you need to have full context before you speak. I need to go back
to watching the screen now. I want to see if removing you had any affect on the
animals' rate of development. You seem to have taken Patrick's role, the parental
figure. I'm trying to figure out if they form strong primary bonds like infant
humans."

Dexi was still quivering with rage, but as Aurora stroked her softly
along the ridges of her snout, she realised something she always hated
realising. She was powerless; there was nothing she could do.

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Comments

I like where this story is going. Now that you've told me what's really behind the animals, everything makes more sense now, and I get it all.

And there's a twist! :0 So now this is infectious. And Haldene seems out of character because of the kindness, or she's just showing her true colors? No idea, but I like that they're "infectious" now.

The other day I was watching the Madagascar movie with my sisters, and I thought of you and Patrick and this story. It's pretty alike, to be honest. Not much, but it just reminded me of this novel.

Also... a random weird question that just popped into my head: how do the animals sound like when they talk? Like animals? Like humans, with an animal accent...? I have no clue. xD Or like normal humans?

Anyway, I hope this review helped in some sort of way. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me whenever!

Shady here with a review for you this fine day! I can't think of anything I'd rather use to procrastinate on my paper with than a fresh chapter of TZ Let's get started...

"For the last time," Chip said, glaring at her, "Were you stupid before you came to the zoo? No, you learned how to get food, how to stay alive. That's much more difficult than anything Patrick's asked you to do since. This dog is a sheepdog. I'm pretty sure they get sheep to behave. That also sounds difficult. Conclusion, this is not a stupid dog."

Aww, this is actually REALLY adorable. I love how fiercely he is protecting the other animals' feelings, even though they can't actually understand what's going on. +10/10

"Sheep!" the dog shouted.

Ooh! That's a twist!

Although I do admit I'm not sure if I fully understand the twist. I read a bit more and see them talking and such but I am perplexed about why non-talking animals are suddenly developing the ability to talk? I mean if that's the case what is it, just proximity to the TZ animals gives them the ability to talk? So do dogs that got taken to the zoo also learn how to talk? It's v perplexing how all this works and fits together lol.

"Follow me," Haldane said, though what she thought Dexi had been doing up to that point was a mystery to her.

I get what you're going for here, but I think the phrasing could be improved. The "she" and "her" gets a bit confusing here. I assume what you mean is "though what Haldane thought Dexi had been doing up to that point was a mystery to Dexi" which obviously you can't phrase it like that but the way it is now is kind of vague. I had to read it a few times to figure out what it was saying. I'd definitely suggest a rephrase.

"I know, I know. This has merely confirmed our theory that the anomaly was confined to the original test subjects not because the treatment you had undergone affected only you but because you were not near any other animals to infect."

I still desperately want to know if like zoo patron's pets/service animals were affected...

~ ~ ~

!!!

I really liked this chapter! So much drama. A twist -- they can infect other animals. Super interested. I'm fascinated to know how all this works. It almost? felt like Haldane broke character a little in this chapter tho -- she seems to be a cold, calculated jerk in the previous chapters. She actually seems to have some personality in this chapter and a bit of... empathy? Idk it was good, it just almost felt like she cared a bit too much. And that she was too willing to explain herself and her actions to Aurora and Dexi, where previous chapters she is like a withdrawn dictator who doesn't respect the animals enough to actually speak to them, just speaks about them.

I could be wrong about that. Obviously you know your characters better than I do. Just a perception I had that I thought I'd mention in case you want to take another look at the characterization in this chapter.

But definitely interesting! And, as always, I'm looking forward to the next chapter!

Hmm... how would you go about having a character display a change like that. As in, normally she's cool and collected, but here she sort of snaps.

Also yeah, the idea is that it should now be clear that proximity to the original subjects is what does it, as in how Aurora started to talk only after she'd been exposed to Treego. I figure the zoo's patron's pets probably wouldn't have come to the zoo... maybe I should make it clear it wouldn't be transmitted from animal to human to animal?

I don't know honestly? I just felt like she was super nice in this chapter for no apparent reason lol.

And nah I got you that it's not to human to animal but what about service animals? Like this might be one of those cultural differences again, but like I see people with therapy dogs out in public, including at the zoo. It's literally illegal to not let someone bring their service dog with them into a place of business. Just an side tangent that probably literally no one else will think of but my brain is weird. Def feel free to disregard that sidetrack lol.

So I can really say that your description is grate, this story has really gotten to a grate place, were the reader just does not want it to end, your every thing you do is just grate, from the start of the chapter to the end of it, I just get so many images in my head, and it looks and feels amazing, your a grate writer and I am really upset to no that this book is done, i don't no when the last chapter is one YWS but I just want this to go on for ever, I was hopping you would write a second book, but that is up to you.

Little things that could be improved

One thing is for shore that I think that your not really going in to your mane characters head anofe, your not really going in to anyone's head at all, this is so that we can no what there thinking so that the reader can get a better feeling of what the characters dealing with, this is one of my big problems as well, my two sisters told me that my description was not grate but yours is, but my big problem was going into my characters thoughts, witch i think is also something that you need to work on.

What were the best lines to read

The dog was staring at Dexi, or more specifically it seemed to be staring at the camera Dexi kept tucked away on the underside of her front foot.

What a grate way to start the chapter of, I really love how your start every chapter I can just feel that hunger to carry on reading, I also see another grate image forming from inside my head that came form this grate chapter.

It took a moment, but the rabbit screwed up its nose and looked up at him with wide eyes, then seemed to get bored and went back to examining the floor.

This was a very funny line I thought, this rabbit has a very funny sens of hummer I think.

"Huh?" Dexi said, turning back to face it.

Dexi sounds very irritated here, and if I was her I would be to, I love were these lines keep on going your doing a grate job here.

So this is all that I can say about this grate chapter, If i was being mean and not very nice or this was just a waist of your time, i am so sorry pleas forgive me and i apologizes for it, So Keep up the grate work, i am really looking forward to the next chapter if there is another one, is there

There is quite a bit of the story left to go actually. This chapter brings it to about 23,000 words or so on the site, and there are 77,965 words in total, so we're just getting started My plan for further writing on this is to do some shorts that I won't be able to explain the premise of without masssssive spoilers, but it would become kinda like episodes of a tv show (though idk if I'd necessarily write them as a script).